Supporting Women in the workplace.
Womens Network
Women's Network Annual Report 2022-2023
Women’s Network Overview
The network is now in its fourth year of operation and continues to grow in membership and support from internal and external partners. The focus of the network remains on influencing, advocating and campaigning for policy development that supports women in the workplace.
Hear from the Co-Chairs
We believe staff networks are critical in encouraging a diverse range of staff to have a voice on issues that are important to them as well as an opportunity to develop themselves as individuals in the workplace.
The Women’s Network continues to collaborate to build community and develop relationships that recognise, celebrate and collectively advocate for opportunities which enable women to fulfil their potential at UU.
In our role as co-chairs, we regularly meet with key departments including People and Culture, EDI working group, Athena Swan Silver Award ISAT group, Staff Wellbeing, DARO, People Development, Marketing and Communications as well as other Network Leads to ensure initiatives or issues raised by the Women’s Network are being voiced.
We have had a successful fourth year in operation with membership listings increasing to 561 members across the institution. This year, our core operations group expanded from five to eight members bringing in new talent, skills and partnerships to guide our work. As co-chairs our collective leadership approach seeks to empower the operations team and network members where women can develop their leadership skills outside of their formal job roles.
This approach has resulted in the following staff leading on eight core initiatives:
- White Ribbon Campaign
Sarah Smyth, Sharon McKee and Marcella McCann - Domestic Abuse Policy
Karan Green working with the Wellbeing team - Safe Space Training
Karan Green working with the Wellbeing team - Menopause Awareness
Moira McCarthy and Sarah Smyth with the Wellbeing team - International Women’s Day
Karan Green working with UUBS (Nancy Brown and Jo-Ann Watson) - Victoria Square ‘Welcome to the city event’
Sharon McKee, Marcella McCann and Sophie Hilditch - WN Awareness Raising
Lucy Finney, Sarah Smyth, Moira McCarthy and Lynsey Hollywood - Period Poverty pilot and subsequent rollout across Ulster facilities
Louise O’Boyle working with the Wellbeing team
All our achievements have been due to working in partnership with other departments across the university, including UUSU, Confucius Institute, UUBS, Alumni Office, Student Wellbeing team and the ByStander training team and the International Students Group at UU as well as partnerships with external bodies, for example, White Ribbon NI, Victoria Square, Time of the Month (TOTM), Women in Business and Soroptomists International Northern Ireland.
We would like to thank all the individuals involved in the Operations Team and our partners who have taken the time to support throughout this past year and we look forward to working with you in the year ahead. As a network, our vision is to continue to grow support for the network to be the voice for staff at Ulster University.
Activities
During the academic year 2022/23, events were planned, organised, facilitated and delivered by the core Operations Team, in conjunction with other satellite events with UU partners.
Advocating for the safety of women
In partnership with UU Health, Safety and Wellbeing team, the network helped support the launch of the UU Domestic Abuse Policy.
With special thanks to our Ops Team, the issue of domestic abuse is being tackled head on with support from the University which signed the White Ribbon Pledge in 2021.
As part of the pledge, people, especially men, are encouraged to wear a White Ribbon and make the Promise to never commit, excuse or remain silent about violence against women. This means that the institution has agreed to share the message that men’s violence against women and girls must end.
Ulster University’s support of the White Ribbon Pledge, alongside the work of the network allowed the university to achieve White Ribbon Accreditation in November 2022. Being White Ribbon Accredited affirms the University’s promise to never commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women and girls. This, along with Ulster University’s Strategy to end violence, UUSU’s Active Consent campaign and the formation of a Health Relationships Advisor role within Wellbeing, broadcasts the message that violence in any form is unacceptable and we can all tackle it together.As part of this accreditation, University-wide education and training with the Safe Space Initiative from Onus (NI) Ltd has been undertaken with 15 university staff members from People and Culture.
Another element of our White Ribbon Accreditation work was the promotion of Architecture students’ Sustainability module, in which they organised distribution of care packages to vulnerable people in association with East Belfast Mission. The ‘Handbags and Hampers of Hope’ project raised £430 and provided much-needed essentials to those in need across Belfast over the Christmas period. Additionally, our fundraising event at Victoria Square, raising raised in excess of £400 for White Ribbon.
Special thanks to Ops team members Sarah Smyth, Marcella McCann and Sharon McKee for their active role in this initiative.
Advocating for Gender Equality and Equity
Aligned to Sustainable Business month (March 2023) and UN Sustainable Development Goal 5, to ‘Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls’, the network partnered with Ulster University Business School and the Confucius Institute to celebrate International Women’s Day (IWD).
IWD is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women on 8th March and marks a call to action for accelerating gender parity; this year’s theme was #EmbraceEquity.We facilitated a lunchtime panel event on the Belfast campus with over fifty attendees from business, academia, third sector and public sector.
The all-female panel discussed this year’s IWD theme of #EmbraceEquity exploring how individuals can better understand the true meaning of equity versus equality and how individuals’ actions can lead to a collective change in support of gender parity as well as what organisations can do to embrace equity.
The panel included:
- Moira Doherty, Deputy Secretary, Department for Communities (UU Alumni)
- Dr. Nourhan Hendawy, R&D engineer at Levidian (PhD completed at UU)
- Jacinta Linden, CEO of Bolster Community (UU Alumni)
- Sarah Fox, Project Support Worker at Bolster Community (UU Alumni of our jointly delivered
- Leonard Cheshire GradEmploy NI programme)
- Abimbola Odeleye, Entrepreneur and International Post Graduate student (Business Development and Innovation Masters Course)
Panel members shared their own thoughts on equity and then joined attendees at the tables for more in depth group table discussions which resulted in attendees identifying actions to take. We also supported a student journalist in writing an article focusing on our work for IWD.
As a network, we continue to represent our members on the EDI Steering Group and the Athena Swan Silver Award ISAT group and we are delighted that the university was successful in achieving this award. We are also proud that our activities over the past 4 years have contributed to the university achieving the Diversity Mark Bronze award.
Advocating for Menopause Support
In partnership with the UU Wellbeing team and external public sector bodies, we supported the launch of the menopause policy in September 2022 at the Derry~Londonderry campus.
This was followed up by a menopause support event in the community with a local health professional giving attendees guidance on dealing with the considerable changes Menopause can bring. A total of thirty people attended this event. In the year ahead, we will continue to support the implementation of this policy with drop-in menopause cafés across our campuses.
Practically supporting women’s needs
In partnership with TOTM and the UU Wellbeing team we helped to raise awareness across the network on the issue of period poverty with the introduction of free period products at each campus for staff and students and promotion of discounted products, including sustainable alternatives to traditional period products.
We also helped to raise awareness among our network members about the introduction of breastfeeding rooms on each campus to support new mums and students of newborns who may be transitioning back to work or study.
Our Ops team members also supported International Carers week in June 2023 by promotion, co-ordinating Women’s Network support, and volunteering their time at key university events to help support this campaign.
Supporting the personal development of network members
Leaving a lasting positive impression
In partnership with the People and Culture team, Network members attended a ‘Building your Personal Brand’ session to help network members understand how they can become more visible in their role at the university.
In November 2022 we developed our partnerships with Kith and Kin, an organisation that provides employers with an outsourced solution to improve workplace Financial Wellbeing, and Women in Banking and Finance, a social enterprise dedicated to promoting productive, inclusive and sustainable economic growth for individuals and businesses alike. As part of “Talk Money Week” we hosted an online session with our partners Women in Business and Kith & Kin Financial Wellbeing, supporting our members to improve their financial skills.
This year we hit pause on our network mentoring programme to spend time reshaping the programme and streamlining the application process for the year ahead. However, existing mentor/mentee relationships have continued to grow, and we look forward to new relationships being formed in the year ahead.
Connecting our network members
This year, we reconnected our partnership with Women in Business, hosted a table at the Chairs event at the Culloden Hotel and encouraged staff to consider becoming a WIB member as part of our corporate membership.
We ran a Lunchtime Seminar enumerating the benefits of WiB membership, with a number of Women’s Network members taking advantage of our institutional membership offer to sign up with Women in Business.In 2022, as we transitioned back to the workplace and were keen to engage with network members, we partnered with Victoria Square for an evening of fizz and fashion
In 2022/23 as we transitioned back to the workplace, our online partnering with Victoria Square In Conversation with events were put on hold to enable us all to reconnect in person. However, an online event we ran with Jenny Pyper, Chair of Ulster University Council and former Head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service had fifty-two attendees. The success of this one event and demand from the network members has led to the Ops team agreeing to host a series of In Conversation with… events in partnership with Ulster University Business School this incoming year, 2023/24.
Partnering with Victoria Square, we hosted an evening of fizz and fashion in aid of White Ribbon NI, in June, supported by Amanda Castray (Director of Campus Life) and the Ulster University Students’ Union who hosted pre-drinks and nibbles for Network members. We raised over £400 on the evening and enjoyed a fabulous night of sharing make-up tips and new fashion ideas with friends.
In partnership with UU Marketing and Communications team, member Lucy Finney ,continues to promote the work of the network through the Insight, the university’s internal staff digital news channel.
Finally, in partnership with People Development, we hosted a meet-and-greet stall for new colleagues to the University to introduce them to the work of the Women’s Network.
Priorities for 2023 – 2024
As we look ahead to next year, we are excited to see our work in the areas of gender equality, domestic abuse, menopause, period poverty and mentoring continuing to grow.
We are also committed to providing more opportunities which will allow members to connect with one another both in person and online, informally and as part of a Valuing Voices oversight group helping to champion the staff voice on issues that matter to them.
Some of our key priorities for 2023/24 are as follows:
- Continue raising awareness of the White Ribbon ‘just say no’ message and support fundraising activity for the charity.
- Continue raising awareness of gender equality through key events linked to International Women’s Day.
- Work with the Chief People Officer on the gender pay gap.
- Support the development of one menopause café at each campus, with internal and external expertise ‘advice on hand’.
- Partner with People Development to encourage Aurora Alumni to contribute to Women’s Network priorities and actions.
- Re-launch the Women’s Network mentoring scheme.
- Continue working with the Wellbeing team on Period Poverty to ensure that free items such as tampons and sanitary pads are available to ‘anyone who needs them’.
- Focus on women and caring and identify practical ways the network can help to provide support to members with caring responsibilities.
- Plan a range of events across the year, including a conference and regular In Conversation With events to build engagement within the network.
- Continue working with internal and external partners to help meet our goals/contribute to EDI, Athena Swan, Wellbeing and Valuing Voices priorities.